"You're going to tell me that you
have nothing, can offer me nothing. You're going to do the
generous, noble thing. Well! I hate generous people. I'm selfish,
utterly selfish and spoiled, and I don't propose to be robbed of
anything I want, least of all my happiness. You do love me, don't
you?"
Esteban's cry was eloquent; he clasped his arms about her and she
held him fiercely to her breast.
"Well, then, why don't you tell me so? I--I can't keep on
proposing. It isn't ladylike."
"We're quite mad, quite insane," he told her after a while. "This
only makes it harder to give you up."
"You're not going to give me up and you're not going to die. I
sha'n't let you. Think what you have to live for."
"I--did wrong to surrender."
"It was I who surrendered. Come! Must I say it all? Aren't you
going to ask me--"
"What?"
"Why, to marry you, of course."
Esteban gasped; he looked deeply into Norine's eyes, then he
closed his own. He shook his head. "Not that," he whispered. "Oh,
not that!"
"We're going to be married, and I'm going to take you out of this
miserable place."
"What happiness!" he murmured. "If I were well--But I won't let
you marry a dying man."
Norine rose, her face aglow with new strength, new determination.
She dried her eyes and readjusted her hair with deft, unconscious
touch, smiling down, meanwhile, at the man.
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